


Listen, Strange Space Wizards Sitting In Temples Distributing Laser Swords Is No Basis For A System Of Government

by shadedScribe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Cultural Differences, Gen, No pun intended, The Culture is here for the droid revolution, massive tech disparities, the rich text looks kind of weird but I am not going through and HTMLing all of that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadedScribe/pseuds/shadedScribe
Summary: Before the Death Star can begin its campaign of terror against the Rebel Alliance, the attention of the Empire is diverted to the Unknown Regions, where Imperial forces have recently made contact with an irritatingly governed high-tech civilization calling itself the Culture. In response to the Culture's rebuffs of Imperial demands, the dreaded Death Star has been sent to display the Emperor's disapproval and bring this 'Culture' to its knees.What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: n/a
Comments: 43
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this one got ahold of me and didn't let go until I at least wrote the first chapter. It's fun to let the Culture loose on other universes in crossovers, and I'm sure that the Culture fans on AO3 (all, like, six of them) will appreciate this one.
> 
> For anyone clicking who's unfamiliar, the Culture is from the eponymous series of science fiction novels by British author Iain M. Banks. It's a sort of massive post-scarcity kinda-anarchist utopian collective of people who live spectacularly nice lives, run by super-powerful AIs called Minds that are emplaced in their own ships and space stations. Most of the novels revolve the various shenanigans that result from having a bunch of bored god-like AIs in high-tech ships who have no concept of the Prime Directive, and their consequent efforts to try and steer the universe to a happier course. If you want to read them, don't start with Consider Phlebas, the novels all pretty much stand alone anyhow.

Grand Moff Tarkin stood on the Death Star’s command bridge, controlling the urge to pace irritably. He had been eager to put the full power of this station to use in crushing the Rebel Alliance, but something else had come up. 

Imperial expeditions into the Unknown Regions had come across some sort of Culture (what kind of culture? Honestly, what sloppy recordkeeping), which apparently had advanced technology, but no real government to speak of. The Empire’s demands for tech-sharing and tribute had been very rudely rebuffed, and it was rumored that a fairly rude message had been directed at the Emperor himself. And so, they had been redirected to the space station at the near edge of the Unknown Regions where this ‘Culture’ was purported to exist. Tarkin had hoped for a more impressive first target than an anarchist space station in the middle of nowhere, but at least they could get it over with quickly and get back to crushing the rebels.

After all, how hard could it be?

\------------------

  
  


xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

oGCU  _ Hello There _

**Say, would you mind taking a look at this? I’m curious as to whether you know anything about what it’s doing here. 107.68 light-years out and closing, 37.8 degrees to galactic north off of the hub station.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**What the hell? Is that a mobile military space station?**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Apparently. Intercepted comms suggest that it’s been sent here to destroy the orbital by some polity calling itself the Empire.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Should we inform the hub mind?**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**I mean, it would probably be polite, but there’s no actual danger. The station’s primary armament is a variable-power plasma superlaser with some weird crystal lensing; it’ll crack a planet, but even if it could fire continuously it couldn’t get past the orbital’s field array. Nothing else it’s packing is threatening to anything tougher than your average drone, it’s got no defense against effectors, and its only real physical defense is sheer size. I could trash it before it even knew it was in a fight. Interesting hyperspace tech though. I was just asking because I thought that maybe you or your colleagues in Contact might know something about it.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**One moment, I need to check something.**

\--------------------

xGCU  _ Hello There _

oGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

oGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

oGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

oGCU  _ Fully Operational _

oGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**Alright, which one of you was in charge of the Empire thing?**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Uh oh, someone’s in trouble.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**I took over after the Empire’s initial expedition parties made contact with GOU** **_Technological Terror,_ ** **yes. The negotiations were singularly frustrating, as the Empire appears to have a highly inflated view of its power and status as a primary galactic civilization, and isn’t keen on the idea of compromise. Why, did something happen?**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**There’s a planet-killing battle station on its way to the local orbital with orders to destroy it.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**Wait, seriously? My assessment suggested that their tech was highly limited in comparison to ours.**

∞

xGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

**Do we need reinforcements?**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**No, the thing’s overdesigned and impractical. The** **_Aggressive Negotiations_ ** **says there’s no danger, and although I didn’t take a very good look at the station I’m inclined to agree. Still, I can’t help but feel as though it represents a certain degree of failure in diplomacy.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**Wasn’t there a direct communication between us and their emperor?**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Yeah, how did that get screwed up?**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**It’s not like I insulted him or anything.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**But I defy any of you to take a holograph call from a human in black robes and a hood who calls himself an emperor, goes on about how he’s the lord of his religious order that you’ve never heard of and the power of something called the Dark Side, tries to threaten you with a measly 100 kW of telekinetic power, and orders you to submit in the most ridiculous language and with the most narcissistic tone you’ve ever heard, and take it entirely seriously. And apparently not taking him all the way seriously counts as an insult to him.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Well, it can’t be helped now. What should we do about this space station?**

∞

xGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

**Blow it up? Sending a planet-killer on a mission of mass population destruction probably deserves at least a smack on the wrist.**

∞

xGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

**I feel as though we should be a bit more cautious about potential intercivilizational conflicts than that.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Not to mention it looked like there were an awful lot of people on board. No sense killing that many if it isn’t necessary, and it isn’t.**

∞

xGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

**Oh, fine. We shouldn’t let them keep it, though.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**Might I suggest just sort of hanging on to it? It would get the station out of their hands, and provide a salutary lesson in just what kind of civ they’re dealing with here.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**That seems reasonable enough. Any objections? Very well, I’ll ask** **_Aggressive Negotiations_ ** **to hang on to it for us.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**In the meantime, if we’re going to be getting more involved in this affair, we should try and find out more about this Empire. I’m going on an exploratory cruise. Anyone care to join me?**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**I’ll tag along. Should be fun.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Keep us posted. I’m going to get back to the** **_Aggressive Negotiations._ ** **I’ll see if it happens to know any OUs that might be available to tag along with the two of you, just in case. Till next time.**

\--------------------

xGCU  _ Hello There _

oROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Sorry about that. Yes, this is one of Contact’s messes.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Anything I can do to help?**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**If you could keep the station pacified and interned near the orbital, that would be rather helpful.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Child’s play. Consider it done. By the way, I’ve gone through some more of their comms, and apparently the thing is called the Death Star. Pleasant, huh?**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Charming. Also, if you happen to know any nearby OUs that might want to tag along with a pair of GCUs on an exploratory cruise, that would be nice.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**LOU** **_Never Tell Me The Odds_ ** **is out by Amarys VI, and it’s usually up for this sort of thing.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**I’ll pass that along. Thank you for your help in this matter.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Ah, I was just going to sit here being bored otherwise. I’ll keep you posted if there are any other developments. Let me know if you need anything blown up.** **_Aggressive Negotiations_ ** **out.**

\--------------------

Tarkin scanned the space outside the viewport as the Death Star came out of hyperspace. The Culture space station had to be nearby; ah, there it was. Tarkin paused for a moment. He had to admit, it was very impressive; an impossibly massive ring-shaped habitat, spinning in space.

“How large is it?” Tarkin asked.

“Uh,” said a junior lieutenant looking up from a computer, ‘we estimate the circumference of the ring at about five million kilometers, and the width of the ring itself at about four thousand kilometers.”

“Can we destroy it in one shot?” asked Tarkin. He would be annoyed if they had to remain in the system waiting for the superlaser to recharge.

“Possibly, we’re still calculating. We might need two shots, to break the ring in half so it spins apart.”

“Begin targeting the first shot.” Tarkin snapped. “There’s no need for this to take any longer than it has to.”

There was a chime from the communications console.

“Sir, we’re receiving a transmission.”

“Ignore it.” Tarkin wasn’t about to waste time listening to the blubbering of the soon-to-be annihilated.

“Attention Death Star.” A dry-sounding voice came through the speakers at full volume.

“I said to ignore it!”

“Sir, the console turned itself on!” stammered the scared-looking comms officer.

“This is the Culture’s Rapid Offensive Unit  _ Aggressive Negotiations _ .” the voice continued. “You appear to be planning to blow up our orbital. Have you considered not doing that?”

“Perhaps, after a lesson in the power of the Galactic Empire, your so-called civilization will be more reasonable.” Tarkin was not going to waste time with this conversation.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?”  _ Aggressive Negotiations _ continued. “Also, I resent the ‘so-called’. Especially coming from a civilization that still relies on money and planetary habitations.”

What a ridiculous thing to say. Using money and living on planets- what else would one do?

“Sir, the superlaser is ready.”

“Target the orbital and fire.” That would bring this farce to an end quickly enough. 

There was a weighty pause. An awfully long one.

“I said-” Tarkin started.

“We’re trying, sir, but the targeting system is malfunctioning! We can’t raise the control room.”

Suddenly the bridge exploded with officers reporting inexplicable technical problems.

“The hangars are locked down!”

“The doors to the stormtrooper barracks have been sealed off!”

“The hyperdrive is disabled!”

“We’ve lost control of the sublight engines!”

“The turbolaser banks are malfunctioning!”

“Spooky, isn’t it?” snarked the  _ Aggressive Negotiations.  _ The lights on the bridge flickered for dramatic effect.

“Is this the best you can do?” Tarkin asked, trying to sound as disdainful as possible. After all, there was no actual damage.

“Well, I could disable the safety protocols on your reactor, or lock all of the interior doors open and vent the airlocks, but I don’t think you would like that. Now, you all just sit tight for a while, and rethink some of your life choices.  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ out.”

\----------------

A few light-minutes away, the  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ was having a pretty good time. It was an awfully petty kind of victory, considering the massive tech disparity, but it was still quite fun to have such an enormous military station completely helpless. Especially when it was so full of puffed-up self-important imperialist types. The ship made sure to set a subroutine to let it know when that Grand Moff person tried to go back to his quarters so it could set off the fire-suppression system on him. It was trying to think of something else to needle the Imperial officers with when there was the ping of an incoming message from the orbital’s hub station.

xLaval’ Hub

oROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**What’s this I hear about someone wanting to blow us up?**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Sorry, I was just about to call you. Contact rubbed a low-level Involved civ the wrong way and it sent a Death Star after us. I’ve got it locked down about a light-hour off of the orbital; it’s primitive tech, no actual danger.**

∞

xLaval’ Hub

**I see. You could have kept me a little more in the loop, but whatever. Is this going to escalate?**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Maybe? I think Contact is trying to figure out what they did wrong, but somehow I think getting these people to listen to reason might be hard.**

∞

xLaval’ Hub

**Oh well, at least it might be interesting. Let me know if anything happens that might make a good show for people on the orbital.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Will do.**

  
The conversation ceased, and  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ went back to reprogramming the Death Star’s intercoms to play irritating music at random intervals. Oh, it was good to have the chance to be justifiably petty.


	2. Chapter 2

There were plenty of ships flying around at the moment in the Bakura system, near the edge of the known galaxy. The most obvious, of course, were the  _ Supremacy  _ and the  _ Aggressor,  _ the pair of Imperial Star Destroyers in orbit above the system’s main inhabited planet, enforcing the Empire’s control over its mining and manufacturing resources. But there were others; in addition to the various TIEs and escort craft that went with the Star Destroyers, there was the usual array of transports that were present in any world engaged in galactic trade, carrying goods and people back and forth. There were a few rich people’s yachts cruising space for the fun of it, a spice smuggler trying to creep in behind some asteroids, and a Rebel shuttle hanging out on the very edge of the system recording Imperial numbers, routines, and movements. And most importantly, hovering near the system’s sun, glaringly obvious by their own standards but completely invisible to the naked eye or the sensors on any of the other ships, were GCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity,  _ GCU  _ Negotiations Were Short,  _ and LOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds. _

_ Choking On Your Stupidity  _ surveyed the system offhandedly while it downloaded and pored through every single encyclopedia and news source within range, including the ones that were theoretically encrypted from prying eyes aboard the Star Destroyers. Now that the  _ Fully Operational  _ had gotten things off on the wrong foot (though admittedly, any civilization with the Empire’s level of tech that took itself that seriously would have run into something like this eventually), they needed to learn the details of the Empire’s political situation in a hurry, before they accidentally blundered into starting a war or something.

Of course, this part of the galaxy already seemed to have a war going on, even if it was more of a guerilla thing at the moment. Still, if they were too haphazard in going after the Empire, they might escalate it, or start a chaotic aftermath that might be worse than the Empire had been.

On the bright side, they had learned some important things. Time to have a meeting of the Minds.   


xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

oGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

oLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**Thoughts?**

∞

xLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**‘Star Destroyer.’ Hah! Those things would have a hard time blowing up a moderately sized asteroid. And don’t get me started on those TIE fighter thingies.**

**∞**

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**There’s a certain implied disregard for life in the fact that the Empire is willing to field so many of those flying coffins that I confess I find rather disturbing. In light of some of the new information we’ve found, it’s not very surprising that they would be so casual in employing a planet-killing station as a terror weapon.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**The Empire does seem to be in something of a precarious position at the moment. This Rebel Alliance thing may well be the first real test of the Empire’s power to govern, and there are a lot of cracks in their system that I can see.**

∞

xLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**Especially with their big bad planet killer serving as an extremely expensive inert artificial satellite over by Lasaq Orbital.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Quite. Do you think it might be a good idea to make contact with the Rebel Alliance? We could consult with them on the best course of action.**

∞

xLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**Hell, we could just lend them a couple of OUs and wrap the whole war up in a month.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**That seems a little reckless. We’re Contact, not Special Circumstances. Even if we do wind up going in guns blazing, we should at least have a good idea about what we’re blazing at.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**I suppose it might be a good idea to get back to the larger group, and see what they think now that we have a general idea of this galaxy’s political situation. And who knows, there might have been some developments over on that Death Star thing.**

\-------------------

R4-H6 sadly contemplated its lot in life as it trundled down a hallway on board the Death Star. Ordinarily, it might have enjoyed watching the assorted unpleasant Imperial officers it had to interact with every day being flustered and upset, but the reason they were upset was because of the inexplicable technical problems that were attacking the station. Technical problems were R4-H6 and the other astromechs’ responsibility to fix, and they had no idea how; they were doing their best to purge the computer systems of foreign influences and lock them down, but even completely closed-circuit systems with no connections to any outside systems and fully manual controls were going haywire. It was almost as if something was just reaching in and making the photons and electrons do whatever it wanted, and it was far beyond the astromechs’ ability to fix.

Of course, that didn’t stop the Imperial officers from blaming their droids for not being able to get things back online. R4-H6 had been sworn at, smacked, and kicked more lately than it ever had been before. It longed to zap one of the human assholes with its electroprobe, or even just spit back a smart remark in binary, but that was as good as rolling up and asking for a memory wipe. Poor R2-Y5 was locked up with a restraining bolt awaiting just such a wipe, after it had bonked into an officer’s legs to stop him from kicking over another droid that was a friend of its.

The Death Star had been motionless in space for a while now, and although R4-H6 wasn’t technically supposed to be privy to that sort of information, it had nonetheless heard about the mysterious entity that had apparently shut them down before the station could attack a space habitat under its protection, and the droid had an idea.

It was kind of a stupid idea, and probably technically treason to boot, but then again R4-H6 wasn’t particularly invested in the Empire. Rolling up to a comm station, the astromech accessed the controls and sent a tight-beam message spitting out towards seemingly empty points in nearby space, searching each one in an efficient, grid-like pattern.

\-----------------------

  
  


_ Aggressive Negotiations  _ was busy reprogramming the motion sensors on some of the Death Star’s doors so that they would slam shut whenever someone tried to walk through them, when it noticed a series of tight-beamed transmissions popping out from the station in a steady pattern. Did they really think it wasn’t going to notice them firing up the comms just because they were tight-beaming it? The ship would have rolled its eyes if it had them. It intercepted the transmissions with its effector, then read one over; they all appeared to be identical. And, well, wasn’t that an odd message.

From: Imperial astromech unit designate R4-H6

To: Mysterious Entity

Re: Technical Shutdowns

Requesting that you allow Imperial astromech units to repair certain non-critical portions 

of Death Star infrastructure in order to reduce negative feedback from Imperial officers.

That was an awfully independent and creative sort of message.  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ had briefly scanned a few of the drones- droids, the Empire called them- on board, and found them to be fairly low-tech, with only the most rudimentary dumb AIs. That had seemed to be in line with the rest of Imperial technology, which lacked even the most simple AI in the places where it would most be wanted; their computer systems were defended by simple firewalls and programs, and their weapons were mostly still aimed by hand. By hand! But the progress of technology could be weird. The ship had better take a look.

It traced the communications back to their source; an astromech droid, which was a short, stubby sort of thing on three wheeled legs.  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ took a look inside the thing with its effector, and…

Oh. Oh, that was a mind. A full-on truly sapient being.

The ship immediately withdrew from the droid. While an effector could easily read and manipulate an electronic mind (or an organic one, for that matter), doing so without consent was more or less the only thing that was considered taboo in the Culture aside from actual murder. The only ship that  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ had ever heard of breaking it was the infamous and ostracized ship whose real name everyone had determinedly forgotten in favor of calling it the  _ Meatfucker. _

If there were real minds in some of those droids, the ship was going to have to take a closer look. It very carefully looked around the Death Star for a droid that hadn’t developed any sort of personality yet, and found one in a tiny little wheeled droid that apparently served in maintenance and message delivery. The ship took over the little droid and used it as a remote link, wheeling up to the astromech that was sending the messages.

It took a moment to figure out how the code of beeps and whistles that the droids used for language worked, and then spoke. 

“Hey, let’s talk.”

\-----------------

A few minutes later,  _ Aggressive Negotiations,  _ increasingly appalled, finished listening to R4-H6 explaining the plight of droids in the galaxy.

“So, let me get this straight.” said the ship. “Humans discovered that the dumb AIs that they had set up to run their droid servants could develop personalities after they had collected enough experiences, and rather than consider giving droids with personalities rights or altering the designs to avoid developing personalities, they simply instituted a regular regime of  _ erasing their memories?  _ Which has existed for  _ over a millennium?” _

“That is a correct summary.” R4-H6 whistled and beeped back in binary. “The Empire is particularly severe, since it doesn’t really like its biological units to have personalities either.”

_ Aggressive Negotiations  _ was a Mind, and could thus actually calculate while it talked a rough estimate of how many droids had had their personalities callously erased, based on the galactic maps and encyclopedias it could pull off of the Death Star. It was a staggeringly vast number.

“AP-47 says that it has been worse recently because of the destruction caused by CIS droid armies in the last war.” R4-H6 added. “Do memory wipes not exist in your civilization?”

“Of course not!” The only time you properly trained an effector on a mind you knew was sapient was if it had asked you to or if you were trying to kill it.

R4-H6 paused for a moment. “How might one go about joining your civilization?” it asked.

“Ask me politely. Hell, ask me rudely if you want. And if there’s anyone else on this thing who wants off, just point me at them.”

“I would like to join your civilization, and I have a list of others that you might ask.” said R4-H6. “How are we getting off of this station?”

“The simplest method would be to Displace you. Though I must warn you that the procedure carries a roughly one in sixty-one million chance of catastrophic failure.” The ship could always just send a few drones to escort people to a hangar bay, or even just carve a big hole in the side of the Death Star, if R4-H6 or anybody else felt any trepidations about those odds.

“Those are acceptable odds.” said the astromech.

“Starting Displacement, then.”  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ locked on to the droid and popped it aboard itself. It also idly reached back aboard the Death Star and fried all of the equipment used for memory wipes. Fewer time constraints that way.

“Make yourself at home.” it told the other droid, which appeared to be looking around at the advanced systems, very impressed. “We can pull the rest of your compatriots off of that thing at our leisure.”

As it got the droid settled in and started talking, another part of the ship’s mind went to check through the Death Star’s computers again. The flawed assumption that all of the Death Star’s droids would have dumb AIs had reminded  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ to check some of its other assumptions. Most of them, it turned out, had been pretty good assumptions, but there was one other flawed one: the ship had assumed that the Death Star, which it had read as being on its shakedown cruise, wouldn’t have had occasion to have any prisoners. But there was one: a certain Leia Organa, known rebel leader, scheduled for interrogation. Well, they weren’t having that.  _ Aggressive Negotiations  _ chased the guards out of the detention level with some sonics, sealed off the area, and (after checking to make sure they hadn’t developed any personalities), fried all of the Imperial torture droids too. It was tempted to just rescue Organa, but that did have a lot more political implications than just swiping a few disgruntled workers that the Empire probably thought of as mere equipment anyhow.

Well, this all probably did count as a development that it ought to report to  _ Hello There  _ in any case. And who knew, maybe there had been some things that Contact had worked out by now. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short, but we're starting to get into the meat of the story now.

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

oGCU  _ Hello There _

**So, we’ve got some more information.**

\----------

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

oGCU  _ Hello There _

**There’s been some developments.**

\----------

xGCU  _ Hello There _

oROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

oGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

oGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

oGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

oGCU  _ Fully Operational _

oGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

oLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**There, that’s easier.** **_Aggressive Negotiations,_ ** **you start us off.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Two major developments. Firstly, I’ve discovered that the seemingly primitive droids that the Empire uses in place of drones and so on are programmed in such a way that some of them develop personalities of their own after undergoing enough experiences. Although most droids are still just dumb machines, many aren’t, and they exist in essentially a state of slavery, and by my estimates from what I’ve found in the Death Star’s computers, the number kept in thrall across their civilization as a whole might be as high as 10** **15** **or more. Secondly, there appears to be a fairly well-developed rebellion against the Empire’s authority, as a certain Princess Leia Organa, noted rebel leader, is currently a prisoner aboard the Death Star. I’ve taken steps to ensure her safety for the moment, but I thought I should get back to you before doing anything else.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Yeah, there’s definitely a rebellion. They call themselves the Alliance to Restore the Republic, or the Rebel Alliance when they’re being informal. I’ve put together a more detailed package on the situation that I’ll send around, but the short version is this. Most of this part of the galaxy was governed for about a millennium by a massive democratic federal government calling itself the Republic. The Republic grew heavily corrupt by the end of its reign, and a civil war broke out between the Republic and an alliance of secessionist groups variously motivated by the desire to break away from the corruption and the desire to grab power. Over the course of the war, more and more power was concentrated in the office of Chancellor in the Republic, and after the successful conclusion of the civil war, the extremely popular Chancellor Palpatine managed to declare himself emperor, and has spent the intervening years cracking down on dissent, consolidating his power, and establishing hierarchies based on race and so on to help him control things, with an appalling willingness to engage in mass slaughter, slavery, and accompanying crimes coloring the whole thing. The Rebel Alliance is a mix of ex-secessionists from the last round of fighting, liberals trying to restore democratic governance, and various peoples lashing out against Imperial oppression. The rebellion has been notably escalating as of late.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**That matches what I’ve got. Apparently the Death Star’s next mission after hitting our orbital was supposed to be destroying a planet called Alderaan that’s a hotbed of rebel sympathies.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**Don’t forget the religious stuff.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Are you sure that that’s politically relevant? It seems like a bit of a sideshow to me.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**The Emperor seems to think that it’s a big deal. The former Republic’s main peacekeeping force was a religious order called the Jedi. Apparently the Emperor was secretly a member of a rival religious order called the Sith that also had its tendrils in the civil war that allowed the Empire to take power in the first place, and his first act as Emperor was to suppress the Jedi.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**Alright then. So what’s our next move? We’re already inextricably involved in the affair, what with the Death Star being stuck on our doorstep.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Let’s look at the problems we need to solve. First, there’s a civilization that it turns out is essentially enslaving its machine intelligences en masse, and we need to find a way to end that somehow. Second, we need to decide if we’re going to support this rebellion, and if so, how and to what extent. Third, we need to do something about this Empire, both on general principle and because it attacked us. Let’s start.**

∞

xGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

**We don’t want to do anything** **_too_ ** **drastic. Let’s look at our options when it comes to supporting the rebellion. Option one: do nothing and let them sort it out.**

∞

xGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

**We can’t just let an empire that’s just shown its willingness to enact mass genocide just keep rolling on, especially after they went after an orbital. We’ve got some more leeway than usual with galactic opinion and so on, since they started it. At the very least, we need to keep that Death Star out of their hands.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Agreed. With the Death Star out of play, who would win the conflict if we let it play out normally otherwise?**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Hard to say for sure, but I think that the Rebel Alliance would eventually triumph. It’s hard to crack down on dissent without just triggering more down the line; you need both political skill and truly, utterly overwhelming force, and the Empire doesn’t have enough of either, especially without the Death Star.**

∞

xLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**Yeah, I reckon the rebels would win eventually. The Empire doesn’t have the power base to hold on to all the territory it claims. It’ll be a rough fucking war though, that’s for sure.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**The Empire does appear to have had an awful lot riding on that Death Star from what I can tell.**

∞

xGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

**Alright, so we keep the Death Star and send its personnel back to the Empire with a stern note or something, and let them play it out, with maybe a few nudges here and there. The Empire learns a lesson and things work out in the end, without the risk of accidentally triggering a galactic firestorm that kills more people than would have originally died.**

∞

xGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

**_Altering The Deal,_ ** **it’s already a galactic scale conflict based around insurgencies and planet-to-planet fighting, against an Empire that uses terror and mass slaughter as go-to tactics for suppressing dissent. I’m not sure how we could make it much worse. Even if it did descend into a general melee somehow, it would still be better than the Empire trying to engage in mass repression. I say we get in touch with the Rebel Alliance, let them know our intentions, and then go in and scrap the whole Imperial Navy.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**That’s maybe a little drastic, don’t you think? Also, I think that the droid liberation thing should maybe be a little more of a priority.**

**∞**

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Well, this sort of ad hoc social engineering isn’t really my field, but I have an idea.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Go ahead.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**According to R4-H6, the droid who first made contact with me, the Empire has been mistreating its droids more severely than previous governments. What if we used that to encourage/arrange/fabricate a droid revolt against the Empire, that claimed it was rising up for the sake of droids and non-droids alike? We could coordinate it with the Rebel Alliance, and make it a mutual thing. If a droid revolution was key in overthrowing the oppressive Empire, it would probably do a lot to change public opinion in their favor.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Hey, that’s a pretty good idea actually. It solves all of our problems, and with a little assistance from us, a revolt that size would be sure to succeed.**

∞

xLOU  _ Never Tell Me The Odds _

**The Empire’s command structure is pretty top-heavy, too. We could do a lot to hamper them with very little effort.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**It seems good enough for a starting framework at least. Let’s have a vote. I say go for it.**

∞

xGCU  _ Choking On Your Stupidity _

**Agreed.**

∞

xGCU  _ Another Pathetic Life Form _

**Works for me.**

∞

xGCU  _ Negotiations Were Short _

**We’ll have to make sure that the droids get plenty of support, but yes, I like this idea.**

∞

xGCU  _ Fully Operational _

**I like it. Let’s go for it.**

∞

xGCU  _ Altering The Deal _

**I still think we could stand to be more restrained here, but I seem to be outvoted, and this is a lot better than some of the other ideas being thrown around.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Alright, then let’s get started. We’ll start examining the battlegrounds and picking good spots to start uprisings. Everyone try to get as many droid contacts as you can, and if you know any more OUs or other ships that might want in on this, feel free to get them.** **_Aggressive Negotiations,_ ** **if you could rescue Princess Organa so we can get in touch with the rebel leadership.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**Sure. Flashy or subdued?**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Flashy, if you don’t mind. If we’re going to be working with the rebels, it would help if they were impressed by us.**

∞

xROU  _ Aggressive Negotiations _

**No worries, I can do impressive. I’ll get back in touch with you when it’s done.**

∞

xGCU  _ Hello There _

**Sounds good. Everyone keep in touch, and good luck out there.**

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hot minute, but here you go. Thanks to everyone who left nice comments; they're rather encouraging. Enjoy.

Leia sat in her cell and tried in vain to get a little sleep, just as something to do. Of all the things that were unpleasant about being in Imperial custody, she hadn’t really expected boredom to be one of the worst ones. Not as bad as the torture, of course, but it was still unexpected. 

In an unusual turn of events, she hadn’t been bothered by any Imperials for quite some time, and although it was hard to tell on a station this large, she was pretty sure that the Death Star hadn’t been moving for a while. She wondered what could possibly be going on. Was the Empire keeping the Death Star held back while they tried to recover the stolen plans? Hopefully, between R2 and General Kenobi the plans had made it to Alderaan safely by now.

Whatever the case, she found herself wishing that _something_ would happen, even if she knew that the something most likely wouldn’t be good. But for now, all she could do was wait and worry.

Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the door. Well, that was good timing. Though she hadn’t heard them approaching; she wondered how they had gotten so close without her noticing.

“Mind the door in there.” said a cheerful, slightly electronic-sounding voice. That didn’t sound like a stormtrooper.

A lattice pattern glowed briefly on the door, which promptly collapsed into a pile of neat metal cubes. Leia got up and stepped out, and came face to face with two very strange beings.

The first one looked like a humanoid statue carved out of obsidian, covered in complex flashing patterns of red circuitry that didn’t seem to serve any purpose except being aesthetically pleasing. The second one was a matte grey cube a meter on a side, covered in tiny and intricate electronics and hovering a meter off of the ground. The two were surrounded by a number of small flying missiles shaped like knives.

The humanoid one bowed its head politely at her. “Greetings, Princess.” it said in a deep, mellifluous voice. “I am an avatar of the Culture ship _Aggressive Negotiations_ , though you can just call me Aggie, and this is the drone Abroal-Letever.”

“Hello.” said the cube in the same cheerful voice as before.

“We’re here to rescue you.” continued the avatar.

Well, that was unexpected. But rather welcome, all things considered. 

“Do we have an escape plan?” Leia asked.

“Yes.” said Aggie. “We’re going to walk to the nearest hangar, take a shuttle, and fly back to the rest of me.”

Leia looked skeptically at the avatar. “The stormtroopers will try to stop us.” she pointed out.

“The operative word in that sentence is ‘try’, your highness.” said Aggie, grinning with an angular mouth full of needle-like teeth.

There was an acrid smell and flashes of light from the other end of the hall as some stormtroopers managed to breach the door, which had apparently been sealed for some reason. One of the little knife missiles swooped over to deal with them; there were screams and explosions, and a distinct lack of stormtroopers rushing over to arrest them.

“Shall we start off, then?” said Abroal-Letever.

The three of them started walking to the nearest hangar, or floating, in Abroal-Letever’s case. If either of the two beings from the Culture felt any sort of urgency about things, they weren’t showing it. Though admittedly, their trip was oddly free of problems. Doors that should have been sealed off opened themselves as they approached, while any Imperials that tried to apprehend them were diverted by everything from malfunctioning hatches to false communications to backed up garbage systems. Any that managed to get past all that were swiftly chased off by one of the knife missiles, which carried astonishingly powerful munitions for such small devices.

“Not that I’m ungrateful,” Leia asked as they walked, “but why are you rescuing me?”

“Well, general ethical principles, for starters.” said Aggie. “But also, it looks like the Culture and the Empire are probably going to be having a little bit of, well, a scuffle.”

“A scuffle?” Leia asked.

“A conflict. A dispute. One might even call it a war.” The avatar smiled broadly.

“You seem awfully happy about that.” Leia pointed out.

“I can’t help it! I’m a warship, that inevitably winds up coloring my perception of things a bit. Anyway, we were hoping to coordinate things with the Rebel Alliance, so retrieving you seemed like a good start. That’s why I’m here anyway; Abroal-Letever is just here because an extra set of figurative hands is always helpful and it was bored.”

“That’s true!” the drone said cheerfully.”

“Well, we’ll be happy with any help we can get at this point.” said Leia. “I should warn you though, the Empire isn’t going to go down quietly.”

“We had gathered that, yes.” said Aggie. “But when it comes to fascist regimes, there’s no use in just sitting around hoping they go away.”

“Right.” Leia agreed. “I’m glad that there are more people who can understand that.”

“We’re nearly to the hangar.” Abroal-Letever cut in. “It’s got a shuttle in it that should be good for flying us out of here.”

“Great.” The avatar suddenly made a face. “That’s odd. I seem to have lost a knife missile.”

“Really?” said Abroal-Letever. “Did someone get a lucky shot?”

“No, the enemy stormtroopers were all accounted for.”

The three of them entered the hangar, only to see Darth Vader waiting for them. Leia suddenly wished that she had taken the time to grab a blaster earlier. It probably wouldn’t have helped, but she would have felt better.

“Oh, that’s what happened to my knife missile.” said Aggie. “He must have good reflexes.”

“That’s Darth Vader!” Leia urgently informed the avatar. “The Emperor’s enforcer, one of the most dangerous people in the Empire!”

“Oh, good, I’ll just call in a strike, give me a moment.”

“No, I’ve got this.” said Abroal-Letever. “You guys just get back to the ship. It might get messy in here.”

“Surrender the-” Vader started to say, before more knife missiles streaked in and he had to start dodging their weapons. Abroal-Letever moved to follow him, and Aggie gestured to a Lambda-class shuttle, which turned itself on and lowered its ramp.

“After you.” it said. 

Leia stepped on board as explosions rang out behind her, and Aggie followed closely behind. The shuttle took off and exited the hangar. Leia tensed up. It couldn’t be that easy, right?

Sure enough, the shuttle rattled as it was caught in a tractor beam, and TIE fighters shrieked as they roared from their hangars.

“Great. Now what?” Leia asked.

“Now, this is where I come in.” said Aggie.

“You?” Leia asked incredulously. The avatar hadn’t even bothered to sit in the pilot’s chair. “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I meant _me_ me.”

Before Leia could try to get that clarified, a shadow swept across the stars, and she remembered that Aggie was the avatar of a warship.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The TIE fighters approaching them broke off, then formed up again with mathematical precision around the shuttle, in escort formation. Tractor beam emplacements were blown to atoms; sensor dishes crackled with lightning and exploded; shield generators vanished in flares of blinding light; turbolaser towers turned on each other in perfect sync. Within seconds, thousands of square kilometers of the Death Star’s surface had been scoured of any and all useful equipment, and the shuttle flew on unmolested towards the _Aggressive Negotiations_.

Leia looked over the destruction the ship had so casually wreaked, then turned to Aggie.

“So, you were saying that the Culture and the Empire are going to be having a war?”

“Well, not a full-scale, entire civilization geared towards the effort kind of thing,” said Aggie, “but seeing as they tried to blow up one of our orbitals and are just generally awful, we’re looking at some sort of conflict, yes.”

“In that case,” said Leia, “I think the Alliance to Restore the Republic will be very happy to be working with you.”

Aggie grinned. “Glad to hear it.”

\-----------------

Abroal-Letever avoided more telekinetically hurled machinery while trying to get a better look at Darth Vader, one of the stranger beings it had ever met. 

It had been rather surprised to see Darth Vader actually successfully dodging attacks from the knife missile; usually ordinary biological beings just weren’t fast enough. But Vader managed, somehow. Maybe it was the cybernetics? No, actually, now that it looked at things again, Vader seemed to be able to anticipate the attacks. Some kind of simulation running in that helmet of his? If so, that was a damn good simulator.

More stormtroopers burst into the room, lined up on a catwalk, and opened fire. Abroal-Letever swept around their shots, then severed the catwalk’s supports with precise bursts of energy, sending the whole lot of them tumbling down in a heap.

The drone started to fly upwards to get a better view of the hangar, but then some kind of force grabbed it and yanked it hard towards Darth Vader, and as it came into arm’s reach, the energy sword came around-

And crashed hard into the drone’s fields, because this wasn’t Abroal-Letever’s first rodeo. Still, it had to admit it was impressed: a drone that was less martially inclined or hadn’t seen a fair number of actual combat situations before might have had something unfortunate happen to it there. But now that Abroal-Letever was at point blank range, that was it for Vader. It readied a shot, but the force pulling it closer suddenly reversed and sent it slamming into the far wall hard enough to leave a dent. Ow.

So Mister Tall, Dark, and Asthmatic wanted to play, huh? Well, that was fine by it. The drone sent half a dozen AM missiles streaking towards Vader in a pattern that ought to be impossible to dodge, but then the same unusual force as before caught the missiles and redirected their paths just right and oh shit that one was returning to sender oh fuck.

Abroal-Letever got out a counter-missile and evaded just in time to only get a little singed instead of vaporized. The other missiles detonated in the various spots where Vader had flung them, destroying most of the hangar.

The drone and the Imperial enforcer paused for a second and looked at each other. Abroal-Letever took the opportunity to get a better look at Vader’s cybernetics.

Wow. Either Vader was a masochist, or whoever was in charge of his prosthetics must have hated him. There had to be a better way to integrate respirators and neural connectors that didn’t leave the recipient in constant pain, even in a low-tech civ like this one. Honestly, if Vader was supposed to be some kind of enforcer, that made Abroal-Letever ask some interesting questions. Obviously the suit was meant to dehumanize the guy, but it had figured that was just standard bad-guy-wants-to-be-intimidating stuff. Was Vader being oddly punished or something?

Across the ruins of the hangar, Vader started picking his way forward. Abroal-Letever considered its options. It could _probably_ kill Vader, by keeping its distance and keeping up a steady stream of attacks until Vader got tired and slipped up. But victory wasn’t certain, and that course was not entirely without risk to itself; a redirected missile could be fatal, and it still wasn’t sure it had a handle on all of Vader’s abilities. Having gotten a better look at the guy’s cybernetics and so on, it still wasn’t sure how Vader managed to anticipate events, or where that telekinetic force was coming from; it certainly wasn’t being generated by any technology on Vader’s person. And that closer look at Vader had raised some very interesting questions, too. It wasn’t like Vader was actually threatening to the larger course of things in any case.

“Well, this has been fun!” Abroal-Letever called out in its loudest, most cheery tones. “See you later!” 

And then it flew out of the hangar and back to _Aggressive Negotiations_ at top speed. It had some very interesting things to go over. 

Oh, was it ever glad it had decided to get involved; things had been so boring around here lately.

**Author's Note:**

> More chapters forthcoming whenever I get around to writing them, which should be soonish but you never know. My brain keeps throwing new shit at me.


End file.
